The metal pad that fell off was connected through the insulator to the post that is soldered to the board. I doubt it is making adequate contact. Once those terminals corrode, they are toast.

The only correct fix is to pull the board and de-solder the battery holder and install either a new holder from Marco or Pinball Life, or go with NV RAM and never have to worry about it again. At the very least, you can order a remote battery holder that mounts on the side of the backbox and has long wires that solder into the old holder contacts. Basic soldering skills....very easy replace. If you don't know how to de-solder / Solder, would recommend taking it to someone that knows how. Even though it is an easy job, you can also overheat the contacts and ruin them if you are not sure what you are doing....good luck

I’ve been using Franks battery boards in most of my machines and I’ve not had any issues so far. Just remove your old battery holder and solder one of these in place and all you have to do is occasionally pop in a new button battery. They are pretty straightforward.

https://noquartersarcade.com/product/williams-pinball-wpc-games-all/

If you're soldering anyway might as well just buy a coin battery holder and solder it on the board itself

If you’re doing this yourself I wouldn’t install an nvram. The traces on the board are very small and unless you’re really good at soldering you could damage the board.

Options listed above are all good ones. https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php/MPU_Battery_Replacement_Options

Interesting that lithium batteries leaked. I think that’s the first photo of a lithium leaking I’ve seen.

He said it was alkaline batteries that leaked and he was replacing with lithium.

I think it's fun to make at least some effort to keep the electronics looking original. I use remote battery packs. But instead of rewiring anything, I use 1/2" dowel to make battery place holders. If the outer two battery holders are in good shape, it's plug-n-play. The picture is from a system 11. Don't know if WPC is the same orientation. I think there's a commercial version of this idea made from molded plastic.

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To the original poster...

Lots of options, but your best option is to replace the batteries with NVRAM.

This requires skilled board repair, but is a 151 year fix.

If you have a pinball repair technician in your area, find out if they can do this job for you.

If YOU are the pinball technician in your area, you can send your board off to a board repair guy...

But at that point I'd probably advise you to move the battery holder off the board, and use Lithium AA replacements.

It's not the work I do for my customers, but it's good enough.

Some of the solder pads on the resistors below the battery need to be cleaned up too. Should be fine. Remove old solder, wipe clean with alcohol, add new solder.

Upvoted for the cat playing with it!

R28-R31 resistors, below battery holder. R31 is marked on the board above the four resistors. Looking again, R24-R27 look rough too. Solder points look corroded and/ or cracked.

I had an idea for a coin battery add-on that could be installed without removing the MPU. If I have to remove the MPU, I'm installing an IC socket and NVRAM. But that's not for everyone and can be risky. So I came up with a couple of prototypes that a friend is testing for me. The plus battery has the coin holder mounted on it and the minus battery is by itself. You can't see it in the pictures, but the coin holder circuit board is mounted on standoffs, so there clearance to prevent contact with the MPU battery prongs. You can make these for $1 or so.

Does anyone know about how long a WPC game without a clock will save settings using a coin battery instead of AA's?

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Couple years+

Seems like a lot of work when taking out the unit is super easy.

If you're going to the trouble of designing a replacement why not design one that provides the same voltage?

The low power standby on the 6264 supports a minimum of 2 volts. One advantage to running standby at a lower voltage is that the standby current is reduced--so backup time is increased using less battery. A single 2032 is simple and small. There is less chance of leakage, and if it does, it leaks on the 50 cent add-on board, not your MPU.

Agree. If it were my game, I would have already replaced the RAM with a socket and NVRAM. If I botch my board in the process, I can deal with the consequences, and the risk is worth the reward. But I'm reluctant to take that risk with someone else's board.

Installing just a coin battery has aboot 0% chance of botching a board

Absolutely right! But I know myself, and I wouldn't be able to resist installing the IC socket if I pulled the board. I can already hear the voices in my head, 'hey, you already have the board out -- may as well install the IC socket, what could possibly go wrong?'. Maybe I tend to overthink...

My idea was to offer a 5-minute solution to game owners that want to get the AA batteries off the MPU and provide some protection against battery damage. Some owners may not be willing or able to make the changes to their board. So this was an easy, low-tech solution to install a coin battery add-on without removing the board.

I heard the same voices on all my games